Ionic

The ionic metron (io) is ⏑ ⏑ — —: two shorts and two longs.^[1] A metron is the unit that repeats, and a dimeter is two of them in a row. Set in its usual dimeters, ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — —, the ionic sounds like a drum struck over and over, di di DUM DUM, di di DUM DUM.^[2] Here are three metra in a row, from Euripides’ Bacchae:

Hephaestion calls this form the ionic ἀπ’ ἐλάσσονος (ap’ elassonos), “from the lesser”.^[3] The Latin name is ionic a minore. Its mirror image — — ⏑ ⏑ is the ionic ἀπὸ μείζονος (apo meizonos), or a maiore. It is the subject of his previous chapter.^[4] The names say which syllables come first: the lesser ones, the shorts, or the greater ones, the longs.

A minore and a maiore. West’s “ionic” is the a minore. He mentions — — ⏑ ⏑ only among the novelties of Hellenistic ionic. Once licences have multiplied the shapes of the metron, he says, a metron of the form — — ⏑ ⏑ should come as no surprise. This is the so-called ionic a maiore, its first long standing for a contracted ⏑ ⏑, as in the Dictaean Hymn to the Kouros.^[5] Hephaestion’s “a maiore” chapter, by contrast, includes archaic Lesbian verses.^[6] Voigt analyses some of them as aeolic cola with choriambic expansion (Sappho fr. 82 as ∧hipp²ᶜ).^[7] The disagreement is one of description, not of fact.

The forms. Here are West’s ionic shapes and sigla, the short labels he uses for them.^[8] A trimeter is three metra in a row:

Here are three of these forms in lines of verse:

Anaclasis and the anacreontic. Anaclasis (ἀνάκλασις, anaklasis) is the transposition of quantities at a fixed place in the colon, ⏑ — for — ⏑ or vice versa. A colon is a short metrical phrase, the building block of a longer verse. In ionics ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — — thus interchanges with ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏑ — —.^[10] Number the positions of the dimeter from one to eight, and the change is at the fourth and fifth: long then short becomes short then long.

Anacreon sets the two forms side by side at the close of PMG 395. Its penultimate colon is a straight dimeter, and the variation gives the stanza a clearer shape.^[11] Here is that last verse:

The anaclastic dimeter is called the anacreontic,^[12] after Anacreon.^[13] His ionics are mostly of this anaclastic kind, usually in pairs bound by synapheia.^[11] Synapheia (συνάφεια, synapheia, “junction”) is continuity from one colon into the next. There is no metrical break between them, so the scansion of a word can be affected by the word that follows.^[14] A mnemonic: “As a word, ‘anacreontics’ / Has a ring of orthodontics”.^[2] Hephaestion knew the form and its owner. An acatalectic dimeter is a full one, with nothing missing at the end. That dimeter “in the anaclastic character”, he says, is “frequent in Anacreon”:^[15]

Ionic or aeolic? Take Anacreon PMG 346 fr. 1. If the cola were divided one way, it would be ¨gl, ¨gl, arᶜ. But word-end falls systematically one position later. So it is a run of anacreontics with a prefixed syllable and a hypercatalectic close, which to West reads as ionic through and through.^[16] A hypercatalectic colon is one or two syllables longer than the norm. A run of ionic metra, for instance, may be rounded off by ⏑ ⏑ — — — or ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — —.^[17] The same ambiguity recurs in tragedy.

Licences in drama. A licence is a permitted departure from the basic shape. In contraction two shorts are sung as one long; in resolution one long is split into two shorts. The opening ⏑ ⏑ is contracted only at the start of a colon, after word-end. In a strophe and its antistrophe, the stanza that repeats its metre, each position “answers” the same position in the other. Contracted answers uncontracted only at A. Pers. 696 ~ 702. Late in the fifth century the initial double short may be replaced by a single short (E. Phoen. 1539 f.). Agathon’s hymn in the Thesmophoriazusae, and Euripides in Phoenissae and Bacchae, admit the resolutions ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ — and ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑. The period is a stretch of verse with no metrical break inside it.^[18] A “hypermetric” long, one outside the metra, is occasionally prefixed to the period, as S. OT 483.^[9] The short metron ⏑ ⏑ — (io∧) never answers a full io in responsion, and nothing suggests that it took the same time.^[9] Resolution and, less often, contraction are among the licences of ionics, and both occur in the ionics of the Bacchae.^[19] Here they are in three of its lines:

Notes

1. ^ West 1987, p. x; Battezzato 2009, p. 131.
2. ^ ^{a b} D’Angour 2022, p. 137.
3. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 12.1.
4. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 11.1.
5. ^ West 1987, p. 73.
6. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 11.3–5.
7. ^ Voigt 1971, p. 19.
8. ^ West 1987, pp. x, 41, 62.
9. ^ ^{a b c} West 1987, p. 62.
10. ^ West 1987, p. 8.
11. ^ ^{a b} West 1987, p. 41.
12. ^ West 1987, p. 85.
13. ^ D’Angour 2022, ch. 9.
14. ^ West 1987, p. 3; LSJ s.v. συνάφεια.
15. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 12.5.
16. ^ West 1987, pp. 41–42.
17. ^ West 1987, p. 5.
18. ^ West 1987, p. 3.
19. ^ Battezzato 2009, p. 131; Lourenço 2011, p. 87.

Ionics are a minority metre everywhere, but a persistent one, and they carry an unusually clear colouring: cult, ecstasy, the East.

The Lesbians. Besides their aeolic cola, Sappho and Alcaeus use the ionic dimeter ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — — and its anaclastic equivalent, the anacreontic.^[1] The ionic trimeters found in Anacreon go back to Sappho, who had used them before him.^[2] Hephaestion says that “whole songs have been written in ionics”, citing Alcman, Sappho and “many” of Alcaeus:^[3]

Both are straight ionic tetrameters. Note what Hephaestion files under the other heading, the ionic a maiore. His “Praxillean”, “Aeolic” and related verses are Sappho’s.^[4] His example of the “Aeolic” tetrameter, “so called because Sappho used it much”, is εὐμορφοτέρα Μνασιδίκα τᾶς ἁπαλᾶς Γυρίννως (fr. 82 Voigt), — — ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — —. On his analysis it is three ionics a maiore and a trochaic close.^[5] On Voigt’s it is the acephalous hipponactean with two choriambs, × — ⏑ ⏑ — ⁝ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⁝ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⁝ ⏑ — × (her statistical anceps signs written ×).^[6] The syllables are identical. For these poems, the “ionic a maiore” of the ancient handbook is the modern aeolic.

Anacreon. Anacreontic-ionic is one of the three main metrical types of Anacreon’s surviving lyric, beside iambo-trochaic and aeolo-choriambic.^[7] Here the anacreontic comes into its own. Paired anaclastic dimeters stand in synapheia, often with a straight dimeter inserted before the last to give the strophe a clearer shape. An example is PMG 395, where “grey already are my temples and my head is white” (D’Angour quotes 395.1–2 and 5–6).^[8] A papyrus ascribed to Anacreon on the strength of its Ionic dialect and metre, P.Oxy. 22.2321 (= fr. 346), has three-line stanzas in various forms of anaclastic ionic.^[9] Its first fragment is the poem West uses to show how aeolic and ionic can be dovetailed.^[10]

Tragedy. Ionics are commonest in Aeschylus. They are occasional in Sophocles and Euripides, who uses them especially in the Bacchae, and in Old Comedy.^[11] West connects the metre with devotional cult, citing the hymns sung by Agathon in Thesm. 101–29 and by the Initiates in Ran. 323–53. That accounts for its prominence in the Bacchae. But there may also be a hint of Asia in it, since several of the cults that used ionic songs came from Asia. And the ionic lyrics of the Persae are often held to be meant to sound exotic.^[12]

D’Angour likewise hears in ionics something ominous or exotically Asian, fit for ecstatic worship, as in Bacchae 64–72.^[13] The metre is used in orientalising (Persae) and Dionysiac (Frogs, Bacchae) contexts, and it has connotations of exoticism. In Euripides, though, it is rare outside Supplices, Bacchae and Cyclops.^[14]

In drama straight ionics predominate over anaclastic, and responsion between the two is seldom found. Quite often the short metron ⏑ ⏑ — (io∧) stands instead of ⏑ ⏑ — —. The strophe may end with a catalectic or acatalectic ionic metron, a hypercatalectic one (⏑ ⏑ — — — or ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — —), ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏒ —, or an anaclastic dimeter.^[15] Several tragic passages are capable of either ionic or aeolic interpretation. West sets out Ajax 628–34 in both columns: phᶜ, hi¨, ph, ph, gl ia∧ against 3io, 2io …, 2io, 2io, io 2io÷.^[16]

Comedy. Aristophanes’ cult hymns have been mentioned. The Initiates’ song in the Frogs, mostly ionic, can be read as close to genuine hymns to the god.^[17] Elsewhere Aristophanes allows remarkable freedoms of responsion, especially in Wasps 273–76 ~ 281–84 and 290–302 ~ 303–16, where ⏑ ⏑ — — responds with — ⏑ — — or ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑, and ⏑ ⏑ — with — ⏑ —.^[16] Hephaestion’s example of the galliambic tetrameter is from the comic poet Phrynichus, with another from the tragic Phrynichus.^[18]

Notes

1. ^ West 1987, p. 33.
2. ^ West 1987, p. 41.
3. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 12.2.
4. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 11.3–5.
5. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 11.5.
6. ^ Voigt 1971, p. 19.
7. ^ Cingano 2022, p. 298.
8. ^ West 1987, p. 41; D’Angour 2022, p. 137.
9. ^ Sampson 2022, in Swift (ed.), Companion to Greek Lyric, ch. 7.
10. ^ West 1987, pp. 41–42.
11. ^ West 1987, p. 61.
12. ^ West 1987, p. 62.
13. ^ D’Angour 2022, ch. 9.
14. ^ Battezzato 2005, p. 164; Lourenço 2011, p. 87.
15. ^ West 1987, pp. 62–63.
16. ^ ^{a b} West 1987, p. 63.
17. ^ Swift 2022, p. 387.
18. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 12.3.

Aeschylus, Persae 65–72

The chorus of Persian elders opens its first song with the army’s crossing of the Hellespont. West quotes 68–72 to show the short metron ⏑ ⏑ — (io∧) that “quite often” stands in place of ⏑ ⏑ — —.^[1] The lines before it are scanned here on the same principles (our analysis, not West’s). The text and line-division are Perseus’. West prints 68–69 as one line.

Three things are worth noticing. First, the “ionic drumbeat” is unbroken from 65 to 69: ten straight metra. Second, the short metron. In 70 and 71–72 ⏑ ⏑ — stands where ⏑ ⏑ — — is expected. It is not a resolved or contracted variant but a distinct short metron. It never answers a full io in responsion, and need not, West argues, have taken as long to perform.^[1] Third, -μα of ὅδισμα before ζυγόν is long, because ζ counts as two consonants and closes the syllable before it.^[2] Without that, the fourth position of the metron would be short and the analysis would collapse. There is no contraction here. Where it occurs in tragic ionics it is confined to the beginning of the colon, following word-division.^[1]

The ionic lyrics of the Persae are commonly held to be meant to have an exotic flavour.^[3] Persae 65–114 is among the orientalising uses of the metre.^[4] The metron itself is the one in which Alcman, Sappho and Alcaeus wrote whole songs.^[5]

Euripides, Bacchae 64–66

The Asian bacchants enter to the same rhythm:^[6]

Line 65 is a straight ionic trimeter (-ρὸν before Τμ- closed; ἀμείψᾱσα with long α). Line 66 is io∧ io, the pattern of Pers. 70. Lourenço’s repertory lists 65 among the straight ionic trimeters, and 66 among the syncopated lengths ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — —.^[7] We take the opening colon 64, ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ —, as two short metra, io∧ io∧, with the full metron withheld until 65. So short a colon admits other descriptions, and this is our analysis, not West’s (he does not analyse these lines). Euripides in the Bacchae admits the resolutions ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ — and ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑, the latter several times in responsion with ⏑ ⏑ — —.^[1] These three lines have none.

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} West 1987, p. 62.
2. ^ West 1987, p. 12 n. 1; Hephaestion, Ench. 1.3.
3. ^ West 1987, p. 62; cf. D’Angour 2022, ch. 9.
4. ^ Battezzato 2005, p. 164.
5. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 12.2.
6. ^ D’Angour 2022, ch. 9, on 64–72.
7. ^ Lourenço 2011, p. 88.

Ionic lived on in cult and in popular song, and grew some new variants.^[1]

The galliambic. The combination of a dimeter with a catalectic dimeter,

⏔ — ⏕ ⏑ ⏑ — — | ⏑ ⏑ — ⏕ ⏑ ⏑ — ‖

synthetic ∿ · the rhythm: a long note for —, a short one for ⏑

gives the galliambic. This is the metre tied above all to the cult of Cybele, as in Catullus 63.^[2] West’s scheme allows contraction of the first double short (⏔), and resolution of the last long of the first and third metra (⏕). Hephaestion files the line as the ionic tetrameter catalectic, and reports its other names. It is called galliambic and metroac too, and in later times anaclomenon as well. This is because the younger poets wrote a great deal to the Mother of the gods in this metre, admitting third paeons, palimbacchii and trochaic dipodies beside the pure forms.^[3] His much-quoted specimen (adesp.):

Laid against West’s scheme, the line works out as follows. Γαλ- is the contracted first double short, and -λαὶ μη- complete the first metron. -τρὸς ὀρείης is the second metron, φιλόθυρσοι the third, and δρομάδες the short metron ⏑ ⏑ — that ends the line. No long is resolved. Hephaestion’s licences (third paeon ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑, palimbacchius — — ⏑, trochaic dipody) are his way of describing anaclastic and contracted forms.^[4]

Hellenistic cult and popular ionic. Isyllus’ astrophic paean (late fourth century BC) has a little anaclasis, plenty of resolution and no contraction. A papyrus poem (CA 185 no. 7) shows some contraction of the biceps. In the Dictaean Hymn to the Kouros (fourth or third century) we meet metra of the form — — ⏑ ⏑ (the first long a contracted double short), which go by the name of ionic a maiore, together with ⏑ ⏑ — — and anaclastic dimeters.^[1]

The sotadean. The sotadean is named after Sotades, who wrote early in the third century BC. This extremely variable stichic line stayed in fashion for centuries. It belonged mostly to low, often bawdy entertainment, but served for moral and other serious verse as well. West describes it as “a catalectic tetrameter of decomposed ionics”.^[2] Hephaestion already treats it, as the “brachycatalectic tetrameter called Sotadean”, under the ionic a maiore.^[5] Nothing could differ more from it than the strict ionics of Corinna (PMG 654 i 11–52). Every strophe is five dimeters, always ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — —, and then the hypercatalectic ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — — |||.^[2]

The anacreontic. Of all ionic verses the dimeter, the anacreontic, was the most used and the longest-lived. The Carmina Anacreontea were written at different times, from the late Hellenistic period to the fifth century AD.^[6] Several of them use its common form throughout, and others admit variations:^[2]

A few of the poems group their lines into stanzas of three, four or five. Budelmann and Cingano date the collection more widely, from perhaps the first century BC to the sixth century AD. Budelmann finds most of its metres related to the two known in antiquity as ‘Anacreontic’, the anaclastic ionic dimeter and the catalectic iambic dimeter.^[7] Anacreontics continued to be written into Byzantine times, when the accent had become important.^[2] Many of the Anacreontea use instead the hemiambic metre, basically a catalectic iambic dimeter, × — ⏑ — ⏑ — — ‖. This is a different verse. In the later poems it is interspersed with acatalectic iambic dimeters and anacreontics. It shows the influence of the accent in a tendency to avoid a proparoxytone word at line-end.^[6]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} West 1987, p. 73.
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} West 1987, p. 74.
3. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 12.3.
4. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 12.1, 12.3.
5. ^ Hephaestion, Ench. 11.4.
6. ^ ^{a b} West 1987, p. 71.
7. ^ Budelmann 2009, p. 238; Cingano 2022, p. 301.